Monthly Archives: September 2016

Dr Jean Kirkpatrick (founder of Women For Sobriety) believed this so strongly, that she made it one of the 13 commandments of W.F.S.

Clever lass, was Dr. Jean.

The past is gone forever. But sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.

Which makes it hard and scary to talk about.

I used to turn to drink for everything.

It was my default setting.

My cure-all.

The solution to every problem I had created in my life.

In the scheme of things, I hadn’t been a non-drinker for very long, when I became housebound and disabled.

This happened to me very quickly, and then took years to recover from it.

I still don’t know how to put this time into words, not properly.
Horror
Fear
Despair
Disbelief

Those are probably the things I felt most often.

Some days, for a few minutes at a time, I thought I would get my life back.

But for the first few years, I didn’t believe there was any hope for me at all.

Time slowed down so much. Minutes felt like hours. Literally hours.

The sheer relief when it got to 7pm was one of nicest emotions I felt, for years, because it meant that day was almost over and done with.

I would hear the theme tune from Emmerdale floating up the stairs from my parents lining room (my full time carers, back then) and know that soon I could cross this wasted day I was experiencing, off the calendar.

Metaphorically speaking, obviously, because my arms didn’t work, so I wouldn’t be performing any actual feats of manual dexterity.

Weirdly, I half loathe hearing it these days, and half still find it comforting.

Dark.

Those years just felt dark. Like I was living at the bottom of an empty well, and everyone else was wandering around above me, just getting on with their lives.

And I knew no one was ever going to come and rescue me. Because l had been told on countless occasions that no one had the right equipment.

Things were as hopeless as I have ever experienced.

There was nothing to do about it.

But I didn’t drink.

The thought never occurred to me, at any point, that drinking would or even could, make this situation better.

Which is madness, given that I had medicated everything with alcohol.

Anxiety

Anger

Tiredness

Sadness

Confrontation

Stress

You name, I drank at it.

There was never a moment of willpower, because it was crystal clear to me that alcohol had absolutely no place in my life.

Even though, let’s face it, I didn’t even have a life, to speak of, during these years.

I say these things to you, just in case you are doing what I did, for years, before I saw the truth:

Alcohol doesn’t have to be the default answer. We don’t have to think of it as a marital bedfellow to the bed things life throws at us.

We don’t have to see it as a reward, or a comfort.

It takes a really short amount of time to change our neurological responses to this belief, and once it’s done, it’s permanent.

I am pleased it never occurred to me to see alcohol as the answer, back in those dark, scary days.

But I’m even more pleased that some of you will read this, and decide you don’t have to ever wait to be housebound and disabled to test this theory out.

You could do it today.

Right now.

And still get to live your life fully, in ways that I didn’t, for years.

Being actively encouraged to drink to the point of physical and mental crisis is sad. It’s so sad that I can’t bring myself to go into why things are this way, so I’ll do it next time, when the thought of it doesn’t make me cry.

For now, all I really want to say is that it doesn’t have to be that way.

That if I had my time over again, I would never have waited as long as I did to stop drinking.

Though yes, I’m aware that 25 is quite young in the scheme of things, it didn’t feel it at the time.

I let it drag on for years, the horrible way I was living.

The absolute self-loathing.

The dangerous situations I put myself in.

And I only did it, because I knew no better.

If I had my time again, the first thing I would do is stop spending my money on booze, and give it to anyone who claimed they would help me.

Looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t do that.

Because when I was in a wheelchair, it was the first thing I did.

I gave all the money I had to anyone who claimed they could help me.

Some were full of shit, obviously.

But some treatments really worked.

And they were all a step in the right direction.

But for some reason, when it came to stopping drinking. I refused to pay for help.

Actually, not “some reason”. The real reason was I always lived in motto fear of there not being enough money for drink.

It’s why I never spent money on anything else.

So I can’t have been that interested in stopping drinking at all.

Not the first few times I tried, anyway.

There are hundreds of people who say they can stop people from drinking.

And every single one of them, no matter how much they cost, are still cheaper than getting pissed every night for the next few decades.

Don’t get me wrong, I would still insist on seeing feedback from people they have worked with.

I would ask around and gauge their reputation, very carefully, before parting with hard earned cash.

But a refusal to pay for help, is a massive indicator that we would rather save the money, just in case we need it for drink.

And if that’s the case? It will always get spent on drink.

We all deserve the best chance at non-drinking. We all deserve to live a life filed with happiness, security and peace.

And nowadays, I personally have no problem paying the right people to make sure that happens.

So, if you are doing it alone, and finding it a struggle, why not have a look around and see who is out there that you feel drawn to?

There are so many people that could be helping you as soon as this week.
And then who knows where you could find yourself the week after?

Just remember a few key points:

•do your research. If they are a charlatan, the Internet will tell you in a matter of seconds.
•don’t give anyone money until you feel they can be 100% trusted.
•make sure they have genuine testimonials.
•better than that, ask your friends in recovery for word-of mouth-recommendations. Nothing is better than that.
•make sure the price they quote you for their services is inclusive of everything. No add-on’s. No need for more sessions than they originally quoted you for.
•ask them to be very clear about the progress they expect you to make within the timeframe you will be hiring them for.
•never trust anyone who tells you their way is the only way. Or That something awful will happen if you don’t do it their way. This is just scaremongering, pure and simple. And it’s never true.

I got some healing done this week.
Like anyone who works with people, one-to-one, quite intensely. I need to make sure that I’m looking after myself emotionally too, or I’m no use to anyone.

If you know me, which you probably do, if you’ve been knocking about here for a while, then you know I’m about as spiritual as a toaster.

I ended up going for my first healing session accidentally, because the lady who does it for me was a guest on a show I used to do, and I loved her, and wanted to support her new business venture.

I expected it to be weird.

It was. At first.

Having someone lay their hands over me and do some chanting malarkey, it was way out of my comfort zone.

But it was nice too.

It felt really lovely when I got settled into it.

Sort of comforting. Like being wrapped in a warm duvet.

Which is how I would’ve felt about drinking, if the warm fuzzy feeling hadn’t always been accompanied by an incessant itch for more and more booze.

The itch always spoiled the warm fuzzy feeling. Massively.

I don’t miss the itch for drink at all.
Anyway, it felt nice, but I didn’t expect it to actually change anything.

It did though. It changed my body and mind. But it also changed my perspective.

Having worked very hard to stay out of a wheelchair permanently, having to work this hard on a daily basis to keep doing so, I was reluctant to let someone else come in and help me with healing in any form.

Healing, like walking again, felt like it should be an inside job that only I must be responsible for.
But I was wrong.

Have healing sessions did make me feel better.

Whether it was because I was sad, or lonely, or in pain from the constant physical rehabilitation, it always made me feel better.

I don’t have it for any of those reasons now. I have it because of maintenance, because I want to keep feeling good.

I have it because prevention is better than cure.

And to reinforce the importance of letting other people be a part of me staying well.
It’s not always about me being in charge.
A solo-effort feels very one-dimensional to me these days.

Far better to have variety, provided by sources I trust.

Healing works for me. It relaxes me, which is something I’m not naturally good at.

It forces me to be still, when I’d otherwise probably be running around after other people.

Most important to me, it makes me better at my job. It makes me a better version of myself, all round.

Which has a positive knock-on effect for everyone in my life.

I found it difficult to marry the two together at first: my totally unspiritual leanings, and the quite spiritual form this method of healing takes.

But then I realised that I was using labels to limit myself.

And that’s something I endeavoured to leave behind years ago, along with the drinking.

If you’ve never had a healing session before? Try it! It’s something new, and new things take all of us further away from old drinking habits.

If it’s for you? Then excellent! You’ve gone and found a new string to your mom drinking bow.

If it’s not for you? still excellent. Because you’ve found a new strong personal preference.

And people who have strong personal preference? They know themselves.

And people who Know themselves don’t fall victim to alcohol abuse anymore.

I would have a tried-and-tested method that I used all the time. On a loop.

I had to use it all the time. On a loop. Because it wouldn’t last long. I would start drinking again, so I would need to use the method. Over and over again.

Maybe you’ve used it too? It went a little something like this:

•drink lots and lots. Do something even more dangerous and frightening and humiliating than usual

•have this something I’ve done be followed by a particularly scary, anxiety-ridden hangover. Even worse than the usual ones.

•be so terrified that I was convinced the fear of my actions and feelings would definitely scare me sober this time.
•spend all waking moments at work thinking about not drinking.

•hide away alone and isolate myself all the hours of the day I didn’t have to work.

•become so bored and lonely and sad that eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and start drinking again. Just so I would have something to do.

There were countless problems with this equation. So many, that the method of permanent non-drinking I teach, is built on foundation of doing the polar opposite of how I used to do things when I failed at “giving up” drinking.

But you don’t have to follow my method to see more success in your own method of stopping drinking.

Even just adding a few simple weapons to your own arsenal of non-drinking will help make all the difference, long-term.
So here is a tip, from me, to you, to help you on your way this week:

If you are using the isolation method to stop yourself drinking, just like I used to, back in the days of unsuccessful “giving up” drinking.

Then make sure you are at least getting some results, by making sure you are isolating in the most useful way.

And the most useful is not sitting the house alone, but still spending hours observing everyone on Facebook or Twitter. Scoping out their timeline to see what a great time they are apparently having.

Doing this just compounds this feeling of loneliness that we haven’t managed to Eradicate just yet.

Instead, stop being an observer of social media. At all.

Take Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Off your phone.

Watching other people from the outside, just gives us a warped perspective. Because an observer can never tell what another person is feeling from the inside.

A snapshot into someone’s life is never accurate. It’s just enough for us to project how we think they are feeling. And we always pick the scenario that will make us feel the worst.

Because that scenario can then be used as ammunition to let ourselves start drinking again.

You want to stop drinking? Really and truly?

Start seeing friends face to face, for an hour at a time. Somewhere interesting.
Stay off social media. Not permanently. Just until the face to face meetings really start to fill the loneliness gap.

Being picky about the company we keep leads to long lasting, fulfilling non-drinking.

Hiding away and spending hours every day observing warped, inaccurate Windows into other people’s lives via their social media timelines, is a guranteed way back to drinking.

Try it for a week. See how much better you feel. The sheer relief it brings.
Then decide if you like it enough to try some more of the slightly different, non-drinking methods out there…

I took absolutely anyone else’s advice, over my own instincts. Because I would never have trusted my own inner guidance.

And it was this lack of faith and trust in myself.

This inability to recognise who I really was, and what I really wanted.

That kept me drinking, long after I wanted to stop.

I was waiting for someone to give me permission to stop drinking.

I didn’t think my giving my own permission, was worth anything.

But nobody ever gave me permission. Because it doesn’t work like that.

The only person who can ever give us permission to be ourselves, is us.

Because nobody can tell from the outside, how our drinking feels from the inside.

Even if we do manage to find the right words to tell them.

Which is something I could never do properly.
Permission isn’t going to be granted. Not from the outside.

Not just because some people have a vested interest in keeping you drinking, so that they can keep drinking, because they want company whilst they are waiting for permission, too.

But because drinking is like everything else in life; it’s up to us to find out where we really belong, and what we should be doing.

We don’t ask other people to find us the perfect job, or ideal relationship. These are things that only we know feel right or wrong.
The only way we ever find out perfect match is to take personal responsibility for getting it done.

Waiting for someone else to decide if we should stop drinking or not, is asking someone else to decide who we are.
If you are a non drinker? Then be one.
Become one, today.

Don’t wait for life to decide what you can be. It’s a waste.

And spending one more minute not being who we truly are, is one more minute that we never get back.

Give yourself permission.

Do it today.
Because you could wait years more, if you decide that someone else has to do it for you.